SpaceX wants to get to Mars not just to plant a flag in the ground and call it a day, but to establish a working, sustainable colony on the red planet. In a paper published recently in the journal New Space, SpaceX CEO Elon Musk offers some clearer details about how exactly he and his team intend to make an affordable transpiration system to Mars possible — including a more concrete timeline for that journey.

“In 2002, SpaceX basically consisted of carpet and a mariachi band,” wrote